Google is strong in retrieval, but not in the other areas. Instead, companies such as Autonomy Inc., Endeca Technologies Inc. and FAST are leading the way by providing deeper analysis and the ability to integrate with other enterprise applications to improve employee productivity, meet compliance needs or drive business initiatives.

"These search engines have more analytic abilities to discover relationships among documents by picking up common terms," says Rita E. Knox, an analyst at Gartner Inc. "Many enterprises also need augmented capabilities beyond standard search, such as identifying what is a company name, a person's name or a geographical location."

Targeted search

Selecting the right search engine, therefore, relies on identifying business needs and finding the best match.

"Companies tend not to use a single product but a variety of products, based on what they are trying to do," says Knox.